Christopher Walken, Photo Text Portrait: *March 31, 1943. Textportrait Christopher Walken by Ralph Ueltzhoeffer 2011, 2011 October 5. Biography Text (2011 October 5, 2011 by Wikipedia.org). Text: Christopher Walken – Christopher Walken (born Ronald Walken on March 31, 1943) is an American actor. He has appeared in more than 100 films and television shows, including The Deer Hunter, Annie Hall, The Prophecy trilogy, The Dogs of War, Brainstorm, The Dead Zone,

A View to a Kill, True Romance, Pulp Fiction, Catch Me If You Can, Hairspray and Seven Psychopaths, as well as music videos by many popular recording artists. Walken has received a number of awards and nominations during his career, including winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1978 for his portrayal of Nikanor “Nick” Chebotarevich in The Deer Hunter. Walken’s films have grossed more than $1 billion in the United States.[2] He has also played the lead in the Shakespeare plays Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Coriolanus. He is a popular guest-host of Saturday Night Live, having hosted seven times as of April 2008. His most notable roles on the show include record producer Bruce Dickinson in the “More Cowbell” sketch, as the double-entendre-named disgraced Confederate officer, Colonel Angus, and his multiple appearances as The Continental. Walken debuted as a film director and script writer with the short film Popcorn Shrimp in 2001. He also wrote and acted the main role in a play about his idol Elvis Presley titled Him, in 1995.[3] Early life[edit] Named for actor Ronald Colman,[4] Walken was born Ronald Walken in Astoria, Queens. His mother, Rosalie (née Russell; May 16, 1907 – March 26, 2010), was a Scottish emigrant from Glasgow, and his father, Paul Walken (October 5, 1903 – February 23, 2001), moved from Germany in 1928 with his brothers.[4][5] His father owned and operated Walken’s Bakery in Astoria, Queens.[6][7] He was raised a Methodist.[8] Influenced by their mother’s own dreams of stardom, he and his brothers, Kenneth and Glenn, were child actors on television in the 1950s.[7][9] As a teenager, he worked as a lion tamer in a circus.[10] Walken went to Hofstra University but dropped out after one year, having gotten the role of Clayton Dutch Miller on an Off-Broadway revival of Best Foot Forward, co-starring with Liza Minnelli, who played Ethel Hofflinger.[11] Walken initially trained as a dancer in music theatre at the Washington Dance Studio, before moving on to dramatic roles in theatre and then film.[11] Career[edit] Early roles[edit] As a child, Walken appeared on screen as an extra in numerous anthology series and variety shows during the Golden Age of Television.[11] After appearing in a sketch with Martin and Lewis on The Colgate Comedy Hour, Walken decided to become an actor.[12] He landed a regular role in the 1953 television show The Wonderful John Acton as the show’s narrator. During this time, he was credited as “Ronnie Walken”. Over the next two years, he appeared frequently on television (landing a role in the experimental film Me and My Brother) and had a thriving career in theatre. From 1954 to 1956, Walken and his brother Glenn originated the role of Michael Bauer on the soap opera The Guiding Light. In 1963, he appeared as “Chris” in an episode of Naked City starring Paul Burke. In 1966, Walken played the role of King Philip of France in the Broadway premiere of The Lion in Winter.[13] In 1969, Walken guest-starred in Hawaii Five-O as Navy SP Walt Kramer. In 1964, he changed his first name to “Christopher” at the suggestion of a friend who believed the name suited him better than his given name, Ronald.[14] He prefers to be known informally as “Chris” instead of “Christopher”.[12] 1970s[edit] Walken made his feature film debut with a small role opposite Sean Connery, in Sidney Lumet’s The Anderson Tapes. In 1972’s The Mind Snatchers A.K.A. The Happiness Cage, Walken played his first starring role.[15] In this science fiction film, which deals with mind control and normalization, he plays a sociopathic U.S. soldier stationed in Germany. Paul Mazursky’s 1976 film Next Stop, Greenwich Village had Walken, under the name “Chris Walken”, playing fictional poet and ladies’ man Robert Fulmer.[16] In Woody Allen’s 1977 film Annie Hall, Walken played the homicidal and borderline crazy brother of Annie Hall (Diane Keaton).[17] Also in 1977, Walken had a minor role as Eli Wallach’s partner in The Sentinel. In 1978, he appeared in Shoot the Sun Down, a western filmed in 1976 that costarred Margot Kidder.[18] Along with Nick Nolte, Walken was considered by George Lucas for the part of Han Solo in Star Wars;[19][20] the part ultimately went to Harrison Ford. In (1977) Walken also starred in an episode of Kojak [21] as Ben Wiley, a robber. Walken won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Michael Cimino’s 1978 film The Deer Hunter.[22] He plays a young Pennsylvania steelworker who is emotionally destroyed by the Vietnam War. To help achieve his character’s gaunt appearance before the third act, Walken consumed only bananas, water, and rice for a week.[23] 1980s[edit] Walken in 1984 stage play, Hurlyburly Walken’s first film of the 1980s was the controversial Heaven’s Gate, directed by Cimino of Deer Hunter fame. Walken also starred in the 1981 action adventure The Dogs of War, directed by John Irvin. He surprised[24] many critics and filmgoers with his intricate tap-dancing striptease in Herbert Ross’s musical Pennies From Heaven (1981). In 1982, he played a socially awkward, but gifted theater actor in Who Am I This Time? opposite Susan Sarandon. Walken then played schoolteacher-turned-psychic Johnny Smith in David Cronenberg’s 1983 adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dead Zone. That same year, Walken also starred in Brainstorm alongside Natalie Wood and (in a minor role) his wife, Georgianne. Walken was one of the last persons to see Wood alive before her drowning near Santa Catalina Island, California, while on a Thanksgiving weekend boating trip.[25] In 2011, Walken hired a lawyer when authorities re-opened the Wood case, while the LAPD said “Walken is not a suspect.” The case was closed and termed an accidental death[26] until June 2012, when the investigation was re-opened and the cause of death was changed to “undetermined”. Authorities stated that Walken is not a suspect.[27] In 1985, Walken played a James Bond villain, Max Zorin, in A View to a Kill, Roger Moore’s last appearance as Bond. Walken dyed his hair blond to befit Zorin’s origins as a Nazi experiment.[28] At Close Range (1986) starred Walken as Brad Whitewood, a rural Pennsylvania crime boss who tries to bring his two sons into his empire; his character mostly based on criminal Bruce Johnston. In Biloxi Blues (1988), Walken played an eccentric drill sergeant, known for his stinging sarcasm and sharp wit.[citation needed] In 1989, he played the lead role of “Puss” in the Cannon theatre group’s version of “Puss in Boots”. In 1988, Christopher Walken played a memorable role as Sgt.Merwin J. Toomey in Neil Simon’s “Biloxi’s Blues” which was directed by Mike Nichols. Walken played the role of Federal Agent Kyril Montana in Milagro Beanfield War in 1988. He also played the leading role of Whitley Strieber in 1989’s Communion, an autobiographical film written by Strieber based on his claims that he and his family were subject to alien abductions. 1990s[edit] Walken (right) on the set of Celluloide, 1996 The Comfort of Strangers, an art house film directed by Paul Schrader, features Walken as Robert, a decadent Italian aristocrat with extreme sexual tastes and murderous tendencies who lives with his wife (Helen Mirren) in Venice. King of New York (1990), directed by Abel Ferrara, stars Walken as ruthless New York City drug dealer Frank White—recently released from prison and set on reclaiming his criminal territory. In 1992, Walken played a villain in Batman Returns: millionaire industrialist Max Shreck. Also in 1992, Walken appeared in Madonna’s controversial coffee table book, SEX, and he played Bobby, Cassandra’s producer in Wayne’s World 2. Walken’s next major film role was opposite Dennis Hopper in True Romance, scripted by Quentin Tarantino. His so-called Sicilian scene has been hailed by critics as the best scene in the film[citation needed] and is the subject of four commentaries on the DVD. Walken has a supporting role in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction as a Vietnam veteran giving his dead comrade’s son the family’s prized possession—a gold watch—while explaining in graphic detail how he had hidden it from the Vietcong by smuggling it in his rectum, after the boy’s father, in whose rectum the watch had previously been concealed, had died of dysentery. Later in 1994, Walken starred in A Business Affair, a rare leading role for him in a romantic comedy. Walken manages to once again feature his trademark dancing scene as he performs the tango. In 1995, he appeared in Wild Side, The Prophecy and the modern vampire flick The Addiction, which was his second collaboration with director Abel Ferrara and writer Nicholas St. John. He also appeared in Nick of Time, which also stars Johnny Depp, and an art house film by David Salle, “Search and Destroy.” In the 1996 film Last Man Standing, Walken plays a sadistic gangster. That year, he played a prominent role in the video game Ripper, portraying Detective Vince Magnotta. Ripper made extensive use of real-time recorded scenes and a wide cast of celebrities in an interactive movie. In 1996 Walken also appeared in the Italian film Celluloide as US Officer Rod Geiger. In 1997, Walken starred in the comedy films Touch, Excess Baggage and had a minor role in the film MouseHunt. He also appeared in the drama/thriller film Suicide Kings which also filled with suspense and humor. In 1998, Walken played an influential gay New York theater critic in John Turturro’s film Illuminata. The same year he voiced Colonel Cutter in the computer animated film Antz. In 1999, Walken played Calvin Webber in the romantic comedy Blast from the Past. Webber is a brilliant but eccentric Caltech nuclear physicist whose fears of a nuclear war lead him to build an enormous fallout shelter beneath his suburban home. The same year, he appeared as the Headless Horseman in Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow, starring Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci. He also appeared in Kiss Toledo Goodbye with Michael Rapaport and Nancy Allen. Walken also starred in two music videos in the 1990s. His first video role was as the Angel of Death in Madonna’s 1993 “Bad Girl”. The second appearance was in Skid Row’s “Breakin’ Down” video. 2000s[edit] In 2000, Walken was cast as the lead, along with Blair Brown, in James Joyce’s The Dead on Broadway. A “play with music”, The Dead featured music by Shaun Davey, conducted by Charles Prince, with music coordination and percussion by Tom Partington. James Joyce’s The Dead won a Tony Award that year for Best Book for a Musical. Walken had a notable music video performance in 2001 with Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice”. Directed by Spike Jonze, it won six MTV awards in 2001 and—in a list of the top 100 videos of all time compiled from a survey of musicians, directors, and music industry figures conducted by UK music TV channel VH1—won Best Video of All Time in April 2002. In this video, Walken dances and flies around the lobby of the Marriott Hotel in Los Angeles; Walken also helped choreograph the dance. Also in 2001, Walken played a gangster who was in the witness protection program in the David Spade comedy Joe Dirt and an eccentric film director in America’s Sweethearts. Walken played Frank Abagnale, Sr. in Catch Me If You Can. It is inspired by the story of Frank Abagnale, Jr., a con artist who passed himself off as several identities and forged millions of dollars’ worth of checks. His portrayal earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.[22] Walken also had a part in the 2003 action comedy film The Rundown, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Seann William Scott, in which he plays a ruthless despot. He was nominated for a Razzie (Worst Supporting Actor) in 2002’s The Country Bears[29] and in two 2003 movies, Gigli and Kangaroo Jack.[30] Walken also starred in Barry Levinson’s Envy in which he plays J-Man, a crazy guy who helps Ben Stiller’s character, and in his starring role in 2004’s Around the Bend he again has a dancing scene as he portrays an absentee father who has fled prison to reunite with his father, son, and the grandson he never knew, before dying. Walken played the role of Paul Rayburn in 2004’s Man On Fire, where, when speaking about the imminent destructive actions of John Creasy (Denzel Washington), his character states: “A man can be an artist… in anything, food, whatever. It depends on how good he is at it. Creasy’s art is death. He’s about to paint his masterpiece.” In 2006, he played Morty, a sympathetic inventor who is more than meets the eye, in the comedy/drama Click, and also appeared in Man of the Year, with Robin Williams and Lewis Black. He costarred in the 2007 film adaptation Hairspray—where he is seen singing and dancing in a romantic duet with John Travolta—and he portrayed the eccentric but cruel crime lord and Ping-Pong enthusiast Feng in the 2007 comedy action film Balls of Fury, opposite Dan Fogler. Walken was in the movie Five Dollars a Day, released in 2008, in which he plays a con man proud of living like a king on $5 a day. The film The Maiden Heist, a comedy co-starring Morgan Freeman and Walken, about security guards in an art museum, debuted at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on June 25, 2009.[31] Walken can be found in Universal Studios Florida’s “Disaster” attraction (formerly “Earthquake and the Magic of Effects”). Walken portrays the owner of “Disaster Studios” Frank Kincaid, and encourages guests to be extras in his latest film, Mutha Nature. Walken is projected on a clear screen, much like a life-size hologram, and interacts with the live-action talent. 2010s[edit] Walken returned to Broadway in Martin McDonagh’s play A Behanding in Spokane in 2010, and received a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play.[32] He had a small voice role in NBC sitcom 30 Rock, in the “Audition Day” episode. Walken reunited with McDonagh for the British crime comedy film Seven Psychopaths which had its world premiere on 7 September 2012. Walken also played the founder and leader of a string quartet in A Late Quartet (late in 2012). Christopher Walken Textportrait by Ralph Ueltzhoeffer 2015.

]]>https://ueltzhoeffer2textportrait.wordpress.com/2013/12/03/romy-schneider-portrait/feed/0temporaerekunsthalleberlinRomy Schneider (Photography Portrait Textportrait by Ralph Ueltzhoeffer).Erlangenhttps://ueltzhoeffer2textportrait.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/erlangen/
https://ueltzhoeffer2textportrait.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/erlangen/#respondFri, 22 Mar 2013 07:36:34 +0000http://ueltzhoeffer2textportrait.wordpress.com/?p=270Erlangen is a small city in Germany (Bavaria) – Wikipedia: Erlangen (East Franconian: Erlang) is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is located at the confluence of the river Regnitz and its large tributary, the Untere Schwabach. Erlangen has more than 100,000 inhabitants. Erlangen is today dominated by the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and the numerous branch offices of Siemens AG, as well as a large research Institute of the Fraunhofer Society and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light. An event that left its mark on the city was the settlement of Huguenots after the withdrawal of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.
]]>https://ueltzhoeffer2textportrait.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/erlangen/feed/0temporaerekunsthalleberlinA. Slominskihttps://ueltzhoeffer2textportrait.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/slominski/
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A. Slominski, Text-Portrait by Ralph Ueltzhoeffer 2011, Artwork (Text: 12.08.09, Textimages: Wikipedia.org) Biography: A. Slominski (*1959 in Meppen, Germany) Modern Art/Artist 1983 – 1986 Hochschule für bildende Künste, Hamburg (Germay).
]]>https://ueltzhoeffer2textportrait.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/slominski/feed/0temporaerekunsthalleberlinSlominskiJim Morrison (December 8, 1943 – July 3, 1971)https://ueltzhoeffer2textportrait.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/jim-morrison-portrait/
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Jim Morrison, Photo Text Portrait: December 8, 1943 – July 3, 1971. Textportrait Jim Morrison by Ralph Ueltzhoeffer 2013, 2013 March 14. Biography Text (2013 March 14, 2011 by Wikipedia.org). Text: Jim Morrison – Jim Morrison, James Douglas “Jim” Morrison (December 8, 1943 – July 3, 1971) was an American singer-songwriter and poet, best remembered as the lead singer of Los Angeles rock band The Doors. [1] Following The Doors’ explosive rise to fame in 1967, Morrison developed an alcohol dependency which led to his death at the age of 27 in Paris. He is alleged to have died of a heroin overdose, but as no autopsy was performed, the exact cause of his death is still disputed, as well as rumors floating of him faking his own death to escape the pressures of fame.[2] Morrison was well known for often improvising spoken word poetry passages while the band played live. Due to his wild personality and performances, he is regarded by critics and fans as one of the most iconic, charismatic and pioneering frontmen in rock music history.[3] Morrison was ranked number 47 on Rolling Stone’s list of the “100 Greatest Singers of All Time”,[4] and number 22 on Classic Rock Magazine’s “50 Greatest Singers In Rock”.[5] Early years James Douglas Morrison was born in Melbourne, Florida, the son of Clara Virginia (née Clarke) and future Rear Admiral George Stephen Morrison.[6] Morrison had a sister, Anne Robin, who was born in 1947 in Albuquerque, New Mexico; and a brother, Andrew Lee Morrison, who was born in 1948 in Los Altos, California. His ancestry included English, Scottish, and Irish.[7][8] In 1947, Morrison, then four years old, allegedly witnessed a car accident in the desert, in which a family of Native Americans were injured and possibly killed. He referred to this incident in a spoken word performance on the song “Dawn’s Highway” from the album An American Prayer, and again in the songs “Peace Frog” and “Ghost Song”. Morrison believed this incident to be the most formative event of his life,[9] and made repeated references to it in the imagery in his songs, poems, and interviews. His family does not recall this incident happening in the way he told it. According to the Morrison biography No One Here Gets Out Alive, Morrison’s family did drive past a car accident on an Indian reservation when he was a child, and he was very upset by it. The book The Doors, written by the remaining members of The Doors, explains how different Morrison’s account of the incident was from that of his father. This book quotes his father as saying, “We went by several Indians. It did make an impression on him [the young James]. He always thought about that crying Indian.” This is contrasted sharply with Morrison’s tale of “Indians scattered all over the highway, bleeding to death.” In the same book, his sister is quoted as saying, “He enjoyed telling that story and exaggerating it. He said he saw a dead Indian by the side of the road, and I don’t even know if that’s true.”[citation needed] With his father in the United States Navy, Morrison’s family moved often. He spent part of his childhood in San Diego. While his father was stationed at NAS Kingsville, he attended Flato Elementary in Kingsville, Texas.[citation needed] In 1958, Morrison attended Alameda High School in Alameda, California. He graduated from George Washington High School (now George Washington Middle School) in Alexandria, Virginia in June 1961.[citation needed] His father was also stationed at Mayport Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida.[citation needed] Morrison was inspired by the writings of philosophers and poets. He was influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, whose views on aesthetics, morality, and the Apollonian and Dionysian duality would appear in his conversation, poetry and songs.[citation needed] He read Plutarch’s “Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans”. He read the works of the French Symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud, whose style would later influence the form of Morrison’s short prose poems.[citation needed] He was influenced by Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Charles Baudelaire, Molière, and Franz Kafka.[citation needed] Honoré de Balzac and Jean Cocteau, along with most of the French existentialist philosophers.[citation needed] His senior-year English teacher said, “Jim read as much and probably more than any student in class, but everything he read was so offbeat I had another teacher, who was going to the Library of Congress, check to see if the books Jim was reporting on actually existed. I suspected he was making them up, as they were English books on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century demonology. I’d never heard of them, but they existed, and I’m convinced from the paper he wrote that he read them, and the Library of Congress would’ve been the only source.”[10] Morrison went to live with his paternal grandparents in Clearwater, Florida, where he attended classes at St. Petersburg College (then known as a junior college). In 1962, he transferred to Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee, where he appeared in a school recruitment film.[11] While attending FSU, Morrison was arrested for a prank, following a home football game.[12] Morrison was arrested in Tallahassee after pulling a prank while drunk at a football game In January 1964, Morrison moved to Los Angeles to attend the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He enrolled in Jack Hirschman’s class on Antonin Artaud in the Comparative Literature program within the UCLA English Department. Artaud’s brand of surrealist theatre had a profound impact on Morrison’s dark poetic sensibility of cinematic theatricality.[citation needed] Morrison completed his undergraduate degree at UCLA’s film school within the Theater Arts department of the College of Fine Arts in 1965. He never went to the graduation ceremony, instead having his degree diploma mailed to him.[citation needed] He made several short films while attending UCLA. First Love, the first of these films, made with Morrison’s classmate and roommate Max Schwartz, was released to the public when it appeared in a documentary about the film Obscura. During these years, while living in Venice Beach, he became friends with writers at the Los Angeles Free Press. Morrison was an advocate of the underground newspaper until his death in 1971. He later conducted a lengthy and in-depth interview with Bob Chorush and Andy Kent, both working for the Free Press at the time (January 1971), and was planning on visiting the headquarters of the busy newspaper shortly before leaving for Paris.[13] The Doors Main article: The Doors In the summer of 1965, after graduating with a degree from the UCLA film school, Morrison led a bohemian lifestyle in Venice Beach. Living on the rooftop of a building inhabited by his old UCLA cinematography friend, Dennis Jakobs, he wrote the lyrics of many of the early songs the Doors would later perform live and record on albums, the most notable being “Moonlight Drive” and “Hello, I Love You”.[citation needed] According to Jakobs, he lived on canned beans and LSD for several months.[citation needed] Morrison and fellow UCLA student, Ray Manzarek, were the first two members of the Doors, forming the group during that same summer of 1965. They had previously met months earlier as fellow cinematography students. The now-legendary story claims that Manzarek was lying on the beach at Venice one day, where he accidentally encountered Morrison.[citation needed] He was impressed with Morrison’s poetic lyrics, claiming that they were “rock group” material. Subsequently, drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger joined. Krieger auditioned at Densmore’s recommendation and was then added to the lineup. All three musicians shared a common interest in the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s meditation practices at the time, attending scheduled classes, but Morrison was not involved in this series of classes, claiming later that he “did not meditate”.[citation needed] Promotional photo of the Doors in late 1966 The Doors took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley’s book The Doors of Perception (a reference to the unlocking of doors of perception through psychedelic drug use). Huxley’s own title was a quotation from William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, in which Blake wrote: “If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” Although Morrison was known as the lyricist of the group, Krieger also made significant lyrical contributions, writing or co-writing some of the group’s biggest hits, including “Light My Fire”, “Love Me Two Times”, “Love Her Madly”, and “Touch Me”.[14] On the other hand, Morrison, who didn’t write most songs using an instrument, would come up with vocal melodies for his own lyrics, with the other band members contributing chords and rhythm nor did he play an instrument live (except for maracas and tambourine for most shows, and harmonica on a few occasions) or in the studio (excluding maracas, tambourine, handclaps, and whistling). However, he did play the grand piano on “Orange County Suite” and a Moog synthesizer on “Strange Days”. In June 1966, Morrison and the Doors were the opening act at the Whisky a Go Go on the last week of the residency of Van Morrison’s band Them.[15] Van’s influence on Jim’s developing stage performance was later noted by John Densmore in his book Riders On The Storm: “Jim Morrison learned quickly from his near-namesake’s stagecraft, his apparent recklessness, his air of subdued menace, the way he would improvise poetry to a rock beat, even his habit of crouching down by the bass drum during instrumental breaks.”[16] On the final night, the two Morrisons and their two bands jammed together on “Gloria”.[17][18][19] Jim Morrison performing in Copenhagen in September 1968 The Doors achieved national recognition after signing with Elektra Records in 1967.[20] The single “Light My Fire” spent three weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in July/August 1967.[21] Later, the Doors appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, a popular Sunday night variety series that had introduced the Beatles and Elvis Presley to the United States. Ed Sullivan requested two songs from the Doors for the show, “People Are Strange” and “Light My Fire”. Sullivan’s censors insisted that the Doors change the lyrics of the song “Light My Fire” from “Girl we couldn’t get much higher” to “Girl we couldn’t get much better” for the television viewers; this was reportedly due to what was perceived as a reference to drugs in the original lyrics. After giving assurances of compliance to the producer in the dressing room, Morrison told the band “we’re not changing a word” and proceeded to sing the song with the original lyrics. Sullivan was not happy and he refused to shake hands with Morrison or any other band member after their performance. He had a show producer tell the band that they will never do The Ed Sullivan Show again. Morrison reportedly said to the producer, in a defiant tone, “Hey man. We just did the Sullivan Show!”[22] In 1967, Morrison and the Doors produced a promotional film for “Break on Through (To the Other Side)”, which was their first single release. The video featured the four members of the group playing the song on a darkened set with alternating views and close-ups of the performers while Morrison lip-synched the lyrics. Morrison and the Doors continued to make music videos, including “The Unknown Soldier”, “Moonlight Drive”, and “People Are Strange”. By the release of their second album, Strange Days, the Doors had become one of the most popular rock bands in the United States. Their blend of blues and dark rock tinged with psychedelia included a number of original songs and distinctive cover versions, such as their rendition of “Alabama Song”, from Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s opera, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. The band also performed a number of extended concept works, including the songs “The End”, “When the Music’s Over”, and “Celebration of the Lizard”. In 1967, photographer Joel Brodsky took a series of black-and-white photos of Morrison, in a photo shoot known as “The Young Lion” photo session. These photographs are considered among the most iconic images of Jim Morrison and are frequently used as covers for compilation albums, books, and other memorabilia of the Doors and Morrison.[23][24] In 1968, the Doors released their third studio album, Waiting for the Sun. Their fourth album, The Soft Parade, was released in 1969. It was the first album where the individual band members were given credit on the inner sleeve for the songs they had written. Previously, each song on their albums had been credited simply to “The Doors”. On September 6 and 7, 1968, the Doors played four performances at The Roundhouse, London, England with Jefferson Airplane which were filmed by Granada for a television documentary “The Doors are Open” directed by John Sheppard. Around this time, Morrison—who had long been a heavy drinker—started showing up for recording sessions visibly inebriated.[citation needed] He was also frequently late for live performances. As a result, the band would play instrumental music or force Manzarek to take on the singing duties to subdue the impatient audience. Performing with The Doors, 1967 By 1969, the formerly svelte singer had gained weight, grown a beard and mustache, and had begun dressing more casually—abandoning the leather pants and concho belts for slacks, jeans and T-shirts. During a March 1, 1969 concert at the Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami, Morrison attempted to spark a riot in the audience. He failed, but a warrant for his arrest was issued by the Dade County Police department three days later for indecent exposure. Consequently, many of The Doors’ scheduled concerts were canceled.[25][26] In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist suggested the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Morrison, which was announced as successful on December 9, 2010.[27][28] Drummer John Densmore denied Morrison ever exposed himself on stage that night.[29] Following The Soft Parade, The Doors released Morrison Hotel. After a lengthy break the group reconvened in October 1970 to record what would become their final album with Morrison, entitled L.A. Woman. Shortly after the recording sessions for the album began, producer Paul A. Rothchild—who had overseen all of their previous recordings—left the project. Engineer Bruce Botnick took over as producer. Poetry and film Morrison began writing in earnest during his adolescence. At UCLA he studied the related fields of theater, film, and cinematography.[30] He self-published two separate volumes of his poetry in 1969, entitled The Lords / Notes on Vision and The New Creatures. The Lords consists primarily of brief descriptions of places, people, events and Morrison’s thoughts on cinema. The New Creatures verses are more poetic in structure, feel and appearance. These two books were later combined into a single volume titled The Lords and The New Creatures. These were the only writings published during Morrison’s lifetime. Morrison befriended Beat poet Michael McClure, who wrote the afterword for Danny Sugerman’s biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive. McClure and Morrison reportedly collaborated on a number of unmade film projects, including a film version of McClure’s infamous play The Beard, in which Morrison would have played Billy the Kid.[31] After his death, a further two volumes of Morrison’s poetry were published. The contents of the books were selected and arranged by Morrison’s friend, photographer Frank Lisciandro, and girlfriend Pamela Courson’s parents, who owned the rights to his poetry. The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison Volume I is entitled Wilderness, and, upon its release in 1988, became an instant New York Times Bestseller. Volume II, The American Night, released in 1990, was also a success. Morrison recorded his own poetry in a professional sound studio on two separate occasions. The first was in March 1969 in Los Angeles and the second was on December 8, 1970. The latter recording session was attended by Morrison’s personal friends and included a variety of sketch pieces. Some of the segments from the 1969 session were issued on the bootleg album The Lost Paris Tapes and were later used as part of the Doors’ An American Prayer album,[32] released in 1978. The album reached No. 54 on the music charts. Some poetry recorded from the December 1970 session remains unreleased to this day and is in the possession of the Courson family. Morrison’s best-known but seldom seen cinematic endeavor is HWY: An American Pastoral, a project he started in 1969. Morrison financed the venture and formed his own production company in order to maintain complete control of the project. Paul Ferrara, Frank Lisciandro and Babe Hill assisted with the project. Morrison played the main character, a hitchhiker turned killer/car thief. Morrison asked his friend, composer/pianist Fred Myrow, to select the soundtrack for the film.[33] Personal life Morrison’s family Morrison and his father on the bridge of the USS Bon Homme Richard in January, 1964 Morrison’s early life was a nomadic existence typical of military families.[34] Jerry Hopkins recorded Morrison’s brother, Andy, explaining that his parents had determined never to use physical corporal punishment such as spanking on their children. They instead instilled discipline and levied punishment by the military tradition known as dressing down. This consisted of yelling at and berating the children until they were reduced to tears and acknowledged their failings. Once Morrison graduated from UCLA, he broke off most contact with his family. By the time Morrison’s music ascended to the top of the charts (in 1967) he had not been in communication with his family for more than a year and falsely claimed that his parents and siblings were dead (or claiming, as it has been widely misreported, that he was an only child). This misinformation was published as part of the materials distributed with The Doors’ self-titled debut album. George Morrison was not supportive of his son’s career choice in music. One day, an acquaintance brought over a record thought to have Jim on the cover. The record was the Doors self-titled debut. The young man played the record for Morrison’s father and family. Upon hearing the record, Morrison’s father wrote him a letter telling him “to give up any idea of singing or any connection with a music group because of what I consider to be a complete lack of talent in this direction.”

Leni Riefenstahl Portrait by Ralph Ueltzhoeffer 2009 (Textportrait). Biography-Portrait, Text Wikipedia: Helene Bertha Amalie “Leni” Riefenstahl (German pronunciation: [ˈʁiːfənʃtaːl]; 22 August 1902 – 8 September 2003) was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph of the Will, a documentary film made at the 1934 congress in Nuremberg of the Nazi Party. Riefenstahl’s prominence in the Third Reich, along with her personal association with Adolf Hitler, destroyed her film career following Germany’s defeat in World War II, after which she was arrested but released without any charges.[2] Triumph of the Will gave Riefenstahl instant and lasting international fame, as well as infamy. Although she directed only eight films, just two of which received significant coverage outside of Germany, Riefenstahl was widely known all her life. The propaganda value of her films made during the 1930s repels most modern commentators, but many film histories cite the aesthetics as outstanding.[3][4][5][6] The Economist wrote that Triumph of the Will “sealed her reputation as the greatest female filmmaker of the 20th century”.[7] In the 1970s, Riefenstahl published her still photography of the Nuba tribes in Sudan in several books such as The Last of the Nuba. Active until her death at age 101, she published marine life stills and released the marine-based film Impressionen unter Wasser in 2002. After her death, the Associated Press described Riefenstahl as an “acclaimed pioneer of film and photographic techniques”.[8] Der Tagesspiegel newspaper in Berlin noted, “Leni Riefenstahl conquered new ground in the cinema”.[9] The BBC said her documentaries “were hailed as groundbreaking film-making, pioneering techniques involving cranes, tracking rails, and many cameras working at the same time”.[10] Early life Riefenstahl was born on 22 August 1902. She was christened Helene Bertha Amalie. She was born into a prosperous family. Her father owned a successful heating and ventilation company and he wanted her to follow him into the world of business. However, her mother believed that Leni’s future was in show business. In 1918, when she was 16, she started dance and ballet classes at the Grimm-Reiter Dance School in Berlin, where she quickly became a star pupil. Riefenstahl gained a reputation on Berlin’s dance circuit and she quickly moved into films. She made a series of films for Arnold Fanck, and one of them, The White Hell of Pitz Palu (1929), co-directed by G. W. Pabst, saw her fame spread to countries outside of Germany. Riefenstahl produced and directed her own work called Das Blaue Licht (1932), co-written by Carl Mayer and Béla Balázs. This film won the Silver Medal at the Venice Film Festival. In the film, Riefenstahl played a peasant girl who protected a glowing mountain grotto. The film attracted the attention of Hitler, who believed she epitomized the perfect German female. Career Dancer and actress Riefenstahl took dancing lessons and attended dance academies from an early age and began her career as a self-styled and well-known interpretive dancer, traveling around Europe and working with director Max Reinhardt in a show funded by Jewish producer Harry Sokal.[11][12] After injuring her knee while performing in Prague, she saw a nature film about mountains (der Berg des Schicksals, 1924) and became fascinated with the possibilities of this sort of film.[13] She went to the Alps to meet the film’s director, Arnold Fanck, hoping to secure the lead in his next project.[13] Instead, Riefenstahl met Luis Trenker who had starred in Fanck’s films, who wrote to the director about her. Riefenstahl went on to star in many of Fanck’s mountain films as an athletic and adventurous young woman with a suggestive appeal; she became an accomplished mountaineer during the winters of filming on mountains and learned filmmaking techniques.[13] Riefenstahl went on to have a prolific career as an actress in silent films. She was popular with the German public and highly regarded by directors. In 1930, she lost the lead role in the Josef von Sternberg-directed The Blue Angel to her neighbour, Marlene Dietrich.[14] Her last acting role before becoming a director was the 1933 U.S.-German co-productions of the Arnold Fanck-directed, German-language SOS Eisberg and the Tay Garnett-directed, English-language SOS Iceberg. The movies were filmed simultaneously and produced and distributed by Universal Studios. SOS Iceberg was Riefenstahl’s only English-language film role as an actress. One of her fans at this time was Adolf Hitler.[7] Riefenstahl accompanied Fanck to the 1928 Olympic Games in St. Moritz, where she became interested in athletic photography and filming.[13] When presented with the opportunity to direct Das Blaue Licht (The Blue Light) (1932), she took it. Breaking from Fanck’s style of setting realistic stories in fairytale mountain settings, Riefenstahl—working with leftist screen writers Béla Balázs and Carl Mayer—filmed Das Blaue Licht as a romantic, wholly mystical tale which she thought of as more fitting to the terrain.[2] She co-wrote, directed and starred in the film and produced it under the banner of her own company, Leni Riefenstahl Productions.[13] Das Blaue Licht won the Silver Medal at the Venice Biennale and played to full audiences all over Europe.[13] However, it was not universally well-received, for which Riefenstahl blamed the critics, many of them Jewish.[15] Upon its 1938 re-release, the names of co-writer Béla Balázs and producer Harry Sokal, both Jewish, were removed from the credits; some reports claim this was at Riefenstahl’s behest. The director later turned over the name of her Jewish co-screenwriter to Nazi Propagandist Julius Streicher.[15][16] Riefenstahl received invitations to travel to Hollywood to create films, but she refused the offers in order to stay in Germany with a boyfriend.[2] Propaganda and documentaries films Leni Riefenstahl with Heinrich Himmler at Nuremberg in 1934 Riefenstahl heard candidate Adolf Hitler speak at a rally in 1932 and was mesmerized by his talent as a public speaker. Describing the experience in her memoir, Riefenstahl wrote: “I had an almost apocalyptic vision that I was never able to forget. It seemed as if the Earth’s surface were spreading out in front of me, like a hemisphere that suddenly splits apart in the middle, spewing out an enormous jet of water, so powerful that it touched the sky and shook the earth”. According to the Daily Express of 24 April 1934, Leni Riefenstahl had read Mein Kampf during the making of her film The Blue Light. This newspaper article quotes her as having commented, “The book made a tremendous impression on me. I became a confirmed National Socialist after reading the first page. I felt a man who could write such a book would undoubtedly lead Germany. I felt very happy that such a man had come”. She wrote to Hitler requesting a meeting. After meeting Hitler she was offered the opportunity to direct Sieg des Glaubens (Victory of Faith), an hour-long feature film about the fifth Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg in 1933. Riefenstahl agreed to direct the movie after returning from filming a movie in Greenland. Hitler congratulates Riefenstahl in 1934 Riefenstahl’s film of the 1934 Nazi party rally in Nuremberg Impressed with Riefenstahl’s work, Hitler asked her to film the upcoming 1934 Party rally in Nuremberg, the sixth such rally. At first, according to Riefenstahl’s memoir, she resisted and did not want to create further Nazi films; instead, she wanted to direct a feature film based on Hitler’s favourite opera,[citation needed], Eugen d’Albert’s Tiefland. Riefenstahl received private funding for the production of Tiefland, but the filming in Spain was derailed. Hitler was able to convince her to film Triumph instead, on the condition that she not be required to make further films for the party. She also told Hitler she wanted the freedom to act again: “I would not be able to go on living if I had to give up acting”. The resulting chronicle of the Nuremberg Rally, Triumph des Willens (named by Hitler), was generally recognized as a masterful, epic, innovative work of documentary filmmaking.[citation needed] Triumph of the Will became a rousing success in Germany.[citation needed] It made Riefenstahl the first female film director to achieve international recognition.[citation needed] In interviews for the 1993 film The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, Riefenstahl adamantly denied any deliberate attempt to create pro-Nazi propaganda and said she was disgusted that Triumph of the Will was used in such a way. Despite vowing not to make any more films about the Nazi Party, in 1935, Riefenstahl made the 18-minute Day of Freedom: Armed Forces about the German army. Like Victory of Faith and Triumph of the Will this was filmed at the annual Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg. Riefenstahl never denied making this short 18 minute film. However she always claimed this film was a sub-set of Triumph of the Will added to mollify the German army which felt it was not represented well in the 1934 filming of Triumph of the Will. Over a million Germans had participated in the 1934 rally in Nuremberg. Later, yearly rallies held in Nuremberg got even bigger. The 1935 rally is noted for pronouncements about the status of Jews in Germany. These became known as the Nuremberg Laws which for Jews in Europe would soon become matters of life and death. In 1936, Hitler invited Riefenstahl to film the Olympic Games in Berlin, a film which Riefenstahl claimed had been commissioned by the International Olympic Committee. She also went to Greece to take footage of the games’ original site at Olympia, where she was aided by Greek photographer Nelly, along with route of the inaugural torch relay. This material became Olympia, a successful film which has since been widely noted for its technical and aesthetic achievements. She was one of the first filmmakers to use tracking shots in a documentary, placing a camera on rails to follow the athletes’ movement, and she is noted for the slow motion shots included in the film. Riefenstahl’s work on Olympia has been cited as a major influence in modern sports photography. Riefenstahl filmed competitors of all races, including African-American Jesse Owens in what would later become famous footage. Riefenstahl with Joseph Goebbels (1937) Olympia was very successful in Germany after it premiered for Hitler’s 49th birthday in 1938, and its international debut led Riefenstahl to embark on an American publicity tour in an attempt to secure commercial release. In 1937, Riefenstahl told a reporter for the Detroit News: “To me, Hitler is the greatest man who ever lived. He truly is without fault, so simple and at the same time possessed of masculine strength”. She arrived in New York City in November 1938, five days before Kristallnacht, or ‘night of broken glass’; when news of the event reached the U.S., Riefenstahl maintained that Hitler was innocent. On 18 November, she was received by Henry Ford in Detroit and Olympia was shown at “The Chicago Engineers Club” two days later. Avery Brundage stated that it was “The greatest Olympic film ever made” and Riefenstahl left for Hollywood, where she was received by the German Consul Georg Gyssling, on 24 November. She negotiated with Louis B. Mayer and on 8 December, Walt Disney brought her on a three-hour tour showing her the on-going production of Fantasia.[17] After the Goebbels Diaries surfaced, researchers learned that Riefenstahl had been friendly with Joseph Goebbels and his wife, Magda, attending the opera with them and coming to the Goebbels’ parties.[6] However, Riefenstahl maintained that Goebbels was upset that she had rejected his advances[15] and was jealous of her influence on Hitler, seeing her as an internal threat; therefore, his diaries could not be trusted. By later accounts, Goebbels thought highly of Riefenstahl’s filmmaking but was angered with what he saw as her overspending on the Nazi-provided filmmaking budgets.[15] World War II During the Invasion of Poland, Riefenstahl was photographed in Poland wearing a military uniform and a pistol on her belt in the company of German soldiers;[18] she had gone to the site of the battle as a war correspondent.[16] On September 12, 1939 she was in the town of Końskie when 30 civilians were executed there, in retaliation for an alleged attack on German soldiers.[19] According to her memoir, Riefenstahl tried to intervene but a furious German soldier held her at gunpoint and threatened to shoot her on the spot. She claimed she did not realize the victims were Jews.[15] Closeup photographs of a distraught Riefenstahl survive from that day.[15] Nevertheless, by 5 October 1939, Riefenstahl was back in occupied Poland filming Hitler’s victory parade in Warsaw.[19] She left Poland[16] and apparently chose not to make any Nazi-related movies after this, however.[14] On 14 June 1940, the day Paris was declared an open city by the French and occupied by German troops, Riefenstahl wrote to Hitler in a telegram, “With indescribable joy, deeply moved and filled with burning gratitude, we share with you, my Führer, your and Germany’s greatest victory, the entry of German troops into Paris. You exceed anything human imagination has the power to conceive, achieving deeds without parallel in the history of mankind. How can we ever thank you?”[19][20] She later explained: “Everyone thought the war was over, and in that spirit I sent the cable to Hitler”.[16] Riefenstahl was friends with Hitler for 12 years, and reports vary as to whether she ever had an intimate relationship with him.[21] According to Ernst Hanfstaengl, who was a close friend of Hitler throughout the later 1920s and early 1930s, Riefenstahl tried to begin a relationship with Hitler early on but was turned down by him.[22] For whatever reason, her relationship with Hitler had declined by 1944, when her brother Heinz died on the Russian Front of the war.[14] After the Nuremberg rallies trilogy and Olympia, Riefenstahl began work on the movie she had tried and failed to direct once before, Tiefland. On Hitler’s direct order the German government paid her 7 million reichsmarks in compensation.[23] From September 23 until November 13, 1940 she filmed in Krün near Mittenwald. The extras playing Spanish women and farmers were drawn from gypsies (Sinti) detained in a camp at Salzburg-Maxglan who were forced to work with her. Filming at the Babelsberg Studios near Berlin began 18 months later in April 1942 and lasted into summer. This time Sinti and Roma from the Marzahn detention camp near Berlin were compelled to work as extras.[24] A surviving document from camp Marzahn shows a list of 65 inmates who were ordered to serve in the production.[25] 50 stills from the filming in Krün near Mittenwald were later found and from these, surviving prisoners were able to identify 29 camp inmates who worked for Riefenstahl and were then deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in the first weeks of March 1943 following Himmler’s December 1942 decree.[26][27] Almost to the end of her life, despite overwhelming evidence that concentration camp occupants had been forced to work on the movie unpaid,[22] Riefenstahl continued to maintain all the film extras survived and that she had met them after the war.[28] Riefenstahl sued a filmmaker, Nina Gladitz, who said Riefenstahl personally chose the extras at their holding camp; Gladitz had found one of the Gypsy survivors and matched his memory with stills of the movie for a documentary Gladitz was filming.[29] The German court found in favour of Gladitz, agreeing that Riefenstahl had known the extras were from a concentration camp, and they agreed with Riefenstahl on only one count (finding that Riefenstahl had not informed the Gypsies that they would be sent to the Auschwitz camp after filming was completed).[29] This issue came up again in 2002, when Riefenstahl was one hundred years old and she was taken to court by a Roma group for denying the Nazis had exterminated gypsies. Riefenstahl apologized, saying, “I regret that Sinti and Roma had to suffer during the period of National Socialism. It is known today that many of them were murdered in concentration camps”. The last time Riefenstahl saw Hitler was when she married Peter Jacob on 21 March 1944, shortly after she had introduced Jacob to Hitler in Kitzbühel, Austria.[16] Riefenstahl and Jacob divorced in 1946.[13] In October 1944 the production of Tiefland moved to Barrandov Studios in Prague for interior filming. Lavish sets made these shots some of the most costly in the film but they were finished within days. The film was not edited and released until almost 10 years later. As Germany’s military collapsed in the spring of 1945 Riefenstahl left Berlin[13] and was hitchhiking with a group of men, trying to reach her mother, when she was taken into custody by American troops. She walked out of a holding camp, beginning a series of escapes and arrests across the chaotic landscape. At last making it back home on a bicycle, she found that American troops had seized her house, then was surprised by how kindly they treated her.[30] Post-war life and career Detention and trials Writer Budd Schulberg, assigned by the US Navy to the OSS for intelligence work while attached to John Ford’s documentary unit, was ordered to arrest Riefenstahl at her chalet in Kitzbühel, Austria, ostensibly to have her identify the faces of Nazi war criminals in German film footage captured by the Allied troops. Riefenstahl claimed she was not aware of the nature of the internment camps. According to Schulberg, “She gave me the usual song and dance. She said, ‘Of course, you know, I’m really so misunderstood. I’m not political.’” However, when Riefenstahl later claimed she had been forced to follow Goebbels’ orders under threat of being sent to a concentration camp, Schulberg asked her why she should have been afraid if she did not know concentration camps existed. When shown photographs of the camps, Riefenstahl reportedly reacted with horror and tears. Riefenstahl continued to maintain she was fascinated by the National Socialists but politically naïve and ignorant about any war crimes. From 1945 through 1948 she was held in sundry American and French-run detention camps and prisons along with house arrest but although Riefenstahl was tried four times by various postwar authorities, she was never convicted through denazification trials either for her alleged role as a propagandist or for the use of concentration camp inmates in her films. However, she was found to be a fellow traveler who was sympathetic to the Nazis. Riefenstahl later said that her biggest regret was meeting Hitler: “It was the biggest catastrophe of my life. Until the day I die people will keep saying, ‘Leni is a Nazi’, and I’ll keep saying, ‘But what did she do?’” Although she won more than 50 libel cases against people accusing her of collaborating with the Nazis, there are many unanswered questions[specify] about her relation to National Socialism in particular and fascism more generally. Thwarted film projects Most of the negatives for Riefenstahl’s finished films and other production materials relating to her unfinished projects were lost towards the end of the war. The French government confiscated all of her editing equipment, along with the production reels of Tiefland. After years of legal wrangling these were returned to her, but the French government had reportedly damaged some of the film stock whilst trying to develop and edit it and a few key scenes were missing (although Riefenstahl was surprised to find the original negatives for Olympia in the same shipment). She edited and dubbed what elements were left and Tiefland premiered on 11 February 1954 in Stuttgart, however, it was denied entry into the Cannes Film Festival.[30] Although Riefenstahl lived for almost another half century, Tiefland was her last feature film.[31] Riefenstahl tried many times (15 by her count)[13] to make films during the 1950s and 1960s but was met with resistance, public protests and sharp criticism. Many of her filmmaking peers in Hollywood had fled Nazi Germany and were unsympathetic to her.[13] Although both film professionals and investors were willing to support her work, most of the projects she attempted were stopped owing to ever-renewed and highly negative publicity about her past work for the Third Reich.[30] In 1956, inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s 1935 novel Green Hills of Africa, she began an ambitious film project in Africa drawn from another novel called Schwarze Fracht (Black Freight).[14] While scouting shooting locations, she almost died from injuries received in a truck accident. After waking up from a coma in a Nairobi hospital, she finished writing the script there, but was soon thoroughly thwarted by uncooperative locals, the Suez Canal crisis, and bad weather (only test shots were ever made).[citation needed] In 1954, Jean Cocteau insisted on Tiefland being shown at the Cannes Film Festival, which he was running that year.[11] Cocteau greatly admired the film.[32] In 1960, Riefenstahl unsuccessfully attempted to prevent filmmaker Erwin Leiser from juxtaposing scenes from Triumph of the Will with footage from concentration camps in his film Mein Kampf.[13] Riefenstahl had high hopes for a collaboration with Cocteau called Friedrich und Voltaire, wherein Cocteau was to play two roles. They thought the film might symbolize the “love-hate relationship” between Germany and France. Cocteau’s illness and 1963 death put an end to this project.[30] A musical remake of The Blue Light with L. Ron Hubbard, founder of The Church of Scientology, also fell through.[33] Photography and final film In the 1960s, Riefenstahl became interested in Africa from Hemingway’s book and from the photographs of George Rodger.[32] Rodger, who had taken the first photographs of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, refused to help Riefenstahl meet Africans, citing their respective backgrounds.[32] Riefenstahl took up photography, documenting a diverse array of subjects. She traveled many times to Africa[19] to photograph the Nuba tribes in Sudan, with whom she sporadically lived, learning about their culture so she could photograph them more easily.[30] They readily accepted her since they knew nothing of her past.[14] She began a lifelong companionship with her cameraman Horst Kettner, who was 40 years her junior and assisted her with the photographs; they were together from the time she was 60 and he was 20.[34] She was granted Sudanese citizenship for her services to the country, becoming the first foreigner to receive a Sudanese passport.[35] Her books with photographs of the tribes were published in 1974 and 1976 as The Last of the Nuba and The People of Kau and were both international bestsellers.[19][36] While heralded by many as outstanding colour photographs, they were harshly criticized by Susan Sontag, who claimed in a review that they were further evidence of Riefenstahl’s “fascist aesthetics”.[37] The Art Director’s Club of Germany awarded Leni a gold medal for the best photographic achievement of 1975.[35] She also sold the pictures to German magazines.[30] She photographed the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich and rock star Mick Jagger and his wife Bianca for the Sunday Times.[11] Years later she photographed Las Vegas entertainers Siegfried and Roy. She befriended Andy Warhol and was a Guest of Honour at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal.[13] In her later years, Riefenstahl became known for her longevity and physical stamina, although she often suffered considerable pain from old injuries. At age 72, Riefenstahl began pursuing underwater photography after lying about her age to gain certification for scuba diving (she cut 20 years off her age). In 1978, she published a book of her below-water photographs, Korallengärten (Coral Gardens) followed by the 1990 book; Wunder unter Wasser (Wonder under Water).[13] On 22 August 2002, her 100th birthday, Riefenstahl released a film called Impressionen unter Wasser (Underwater Impressions), an idealized documentary of life in the oceans and her first film in over 25 years.[19] At age 100, she was still photographing marine life and gained the distinction of being the world’s oldest scuba diver.[32] Riefenstahl was a member of Greenpeace for 8 years.[38] She survived a helicopter crash in Sudan in 2000 while trying to learn the fates of her Nuba friends during the Sudanese civil war and was airlifted to a Munich hospital.[14] Later years and death Riefenstahl celebrated her 101st birthday on 22 August 2003 and, according to one tabloid in 2007, married Horst Kettner.[1] Leni Riefenstahl died in her sleep on the late evening of 8 September 2003 at her home in Pöcking, Germany. She had been suffering from cancer. She was buried in Munich’s Waldfriedhof cemetery. There was varied response in the obituary pages of leading publications, although most recognized her technical breakthroughs in film making: The Daily Telegraph wrote that she was perhaps the most talented female cinema director of the 20th century; her celebration of Nazi Germany in film ensured that she was certainly the most infamous…Critics would later decry her fascination with the athletes’ [Olympia] physiques as fascistic; but in truth her interest was born not of racist ends but of the delight she, as a former dancer, took in the human form.[39] The Independent wrote that Opinions will be divided between those who see her as a young, talented and ambitious woman caught up in the tide of events which she did not fully understand, and those who believe her to be a cold and opportunist propagandist and a Nazi by association.[13] The Independent also offered At the end of her long life she was still the controversial femme fatale of German films…She was interested in beauty, adventure and films, but she was famous for being the woman you love to hate.[40] Views of critics In his book The Story of Film, film scholar Mark Cousins claims, “Next to Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock, Leni Riefenstahl was the most technically talented Western film maker of her era”. Reviewer Gary Morris called Riefenstahl “an artist of unparalleled gifts, a woman in an industry dominated by men, one of the great formalists of the cinema on a par with Eisenstein or Welles”.[41] Pauline Kael called Triumph and Olympia “the two greatest films ever directed by a woman”.[34] New York Times film critic Hal Erickson states that while the Triumph of the Will’s “Jewish Question” is mainly unmentioned, “filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl prefers to concentrate on cheering crowds, precision marching, military bands, and Hitler’s climactic speech, all orchestrated, choreographed and illuminated on a scale that makes Griffith and DeMille look like poverty-row directors.”[42] The recurring topic of a female director with such prowess and force executing such a work was apparently resented by propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels “but finally had to admit that her images, achieved through the use of 30 cameras and 120 assistants, were worth a thousand speeches.”[42] While it may be “possibly the most powerful propaganda film ever made, Triumph of the Will is also, in retrospect, one of the most horrifying.”[42] New York Times film critic Hal Erickson says of Riefenstahl, “Having proven her mettle with her still-astonishing propaganda epic Triumph of the Will, German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl furthered her reputation with the two-part Olympia.”[43] While the first half of the film is unique in its portrayal of “non-true Aryan” athletes, especially the emerging star of Jesse Owens, “The second half of the film is the more impressive technically, with Riefenstahl utilizing an astonishing variety of camera speeds and angles to record the diving competition.”[43] Showing Riefenstahl’s work ethic and perseverance, her crew began “Working 16 hours a day, seven days a week.” [43] Though, “Riefenstahl and her staff were often denied desirable camera angles,” they were forced “to improvise with telephoto lenses.” [43] The results of this ingenuity are “far more dramatically impressive than the up-close-and-personal approach taken by contemporary TV cameramen.”[43] Critic Judith Thurman says in her piece in the The New Yorker that “Riefenstahl’s “genius” has rarely been questioned, even by critics who despise the service to which she lent it.” Riefenstahl was a “consummate stylist obsessed with bodies in motion, particularly those of dancers and athletes.”[44] Her two most famous films, Olympia and Triumph of the Will are critiqued by Thurman, who says, “In both, Riefenstahl relies heavily for her transitions on portentous cutaways to clouds, mist, statuary, foliage, and rooftops. Her reaction shots have a tedious sameness: shining, ecstatic faces—nearly all young and Aryan, except for Hitler’s.”[44] Thurman claims that very few people actually see Riefenstahl’s full work, saying “many people, even film buffs, seem never to have seen—or are unaware of never having seen—Riefenstahl’s documentaries in their entirety,” which leads people to believe that “If, by definition, the trailer for a so-called masterpiece can never be greater than the film itself, then Riefenstahl’s legacy fails the test.”[44] Writer Richard Corliss wrote in Time magazine that he was “impressed by Riefenstahl’s standing as a total auteur: producer, writer, director, editor and, in the fiction films, actress.”[45] On the subject of her films being classic works, and not simply propaganda, Corliss argues that “The issues her films and her career raise are as complex and they are important, and her vilifiers tend to reduce the argument to one of a director’s complicity in atrocity or her criminal ignorance.”[45] The reason, Corliss states, that people discredit her work, and continue to do so, is the fact that she is a woman, saying, “Riefenstahl’s sin, I suspect, was being a woman — a woman who, uniquely, dared to play the man’s game of filmmaking. Play and win, for, by any disinterested standard, Triumph of the Will and Olympia are towering artistic achievements.”[45] Even though “she shot her last feature film, Tiefland, in the early 40s, and released it in 1954, Riefenstahl is still the world’s most controversial director; her name summons the conflicts of defiant artistry and compromised morality.”[45] But regardless of political opinion “Riefenstahl’s visual style — heroic, sensuous, attuned to the mists and myths of nature” will always be celebrated, though at the time it was not in “critical fashion.” [45] “Finally, Riefenstahl was a woman, a beautiful woman. When she was seen with Hitler, their photos made the world’s front pages. And the image stuck.”[45] In 2008, Yukihiko Yoshida did a study called [46] “Leni Riefenstahl and German expressionism: research in Visual Cultural Studies using the trans-disciplinary semantic spaces of specialized dictionaries.” The study took databases of images tagged with connotative and denotative keywords (a search engine) and found Riefenstahl’s imagery had the same qualities as imagery tagged “degenerate” in the title of the exhibition, “Degenerate Art” in Germany at 1937. Film biographies In 1993, she was the subject of the Emmy Award-winning German documentary film The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, directed by Ray Müller.[47] Riefenstahl appeared in the film and answered several questions and detailed the production of her films.[48][49] She was also the subject of Müller’s 2000 documentary film Leni Riefenstahl: Her Dream of Africa, documenting her return to Sudan to visit the Nuba. The Guardian reported in April 2007 that British screenwriter Rupert Walters was writing a movie based on Riefenstahl’s life which would star actress Jodie Foster.[19] The project had been in the works for more than seven years under the working title The Leni Riefenstahl Project.[50] The project is co-produced by Primary Pictures and Foster’s own Egg Pictures.[50] Foster said in 1999, “There is no other woman in the 20th century who has been so admired and vilified simultaneously”.[50] The project had not been able to capture Riefenstahl’s consent while she was alive, since Riefenstahl requested the ability to veto any scenes she did not agree with; Riefenstahl also preferred Sharon Stone as the star of the movie rather than Foster.[19][51] Both Foster and Madonna had sought the rights to Riefenstahl’s autobiography since the early 1990s.[11] Director Paul Verhoeven corresponded with Riefenstahl about a separate film biography.[51] In 2011, the director Steven Soderbergh revealed that he had spent 6 months working on a biopic of Riefenstahl. He ultimately abandoned the project over concerns of its commercial prospects and instead pursued the pandemic thriller, Contagion.[52] In popular culture Riefenstahl’s filming merits are discussed between characters in the Quentin Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds. Tarantino explained the significant presence of Third Reich filmmaking in his film: “Riefenstahl and Goebbels despised each other. He was in charge of every single person in the German film industry with the sole exception of her”.[53] Leni, an award winning play by Sarah Greenman, is based on the life and work of Leni Riefenstahl. It saw productions in Oakland, California in 2004, Portland, Oregon in 2007, Seattle, Washington in 2008, and was showcased at the New York Fringe Festival in 2007.[citation needed] A play based on Riefenstahl, Playing Leni (originally titled Dysfictional Circumstances) by David Robson and John Stanton, won the Hotel Obligado Audience Choice Award for New Work at the 2010 Spark Showcase in Philadelphia. It subsequently received a staged reading at the Philly Fringe Festival and was produced in May 2011 by Madhouse Theater.[citation needed] Riefenstahl was referenced a number of times in the movie-lampooning television show, Mystery Science Theater 3000. In a season 8 episode of the show, as the characters in the show watch the 1950s horror film The Leech Woman, the lead female character of the film is transformed to a younger version of herself with a potion. Robot Tom Servo, upon seeing the newly rejuvenated character, says: “They turned her into Leni Riefenstahl!” The director was also mentioned by an MST3k character as they watched a short 1950s film Century 21 Calling; at one point Crow rhetorically asks “Did Leni Riefenstahl direct this?” as the blond, idealized-teens enthusiastically cavort at the Seattle World’s Fair. Works Selected filmography Year Film Credited as coDirector co-Producer co-Writer Actor Role 1925 Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit (Ways to Strength and Beauty) Template:? proof? Dancer 1926 Der heilige Berg – (The Holy Mountain) Yes Diotima 1927 Der große Sprung – (The Great Leap) Yes Gita 1928 Das Schicksal derer von Habsburg Yes Maria Vetsera 1929 Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü – (The White Hell of Pitz Palu) Yes Maria Maioni 1930 Stürme über dem Mont Blanc – (Storm over Mont Blanc) Yes Hella Armstrong 1931 Der weiße Rausch – Neue Wunder des Schneeschuhs Yes Leni 1932 Das Blaue Licht – (The Blue Light) Yes Yes Yes Yes Junta 1933 S.O.S. Eisberg Yes Ellen Lawrence Der Sieg des Glaubens – (Victory of Faith) Yes 1935 Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht – (Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces) Yes Yes Yes Triumph des Willens – (Triumph of the Will) Yes Yes Yes 1937 Wilde Wasser Yes 1938 Olympia 1. Teil – Fest der Völker – (Festival of Nations) Yes Yes Yes Yes Nude model (uncredited) Olympia 2. Teil – Fest der Schönheit – (Festival of Beauty) Yes Yes Yes 1954 Tiefland – (Lowlands) Yes Yes Yes Yes Martha 2002 Impressionen unter Wasser Yes Year Film Director Producer Writer Actor Role Photographer The Last of the Nuba (Harper, 1974; St. Martin’s Press, 1995, ISBN 0-312-13642-0) The People of Kau (Harper, 1976; St. Martin’s Press reprint edition, 1997, ISBN 0-312-16963-9) Vanishing Africa (Harmony First American edition, 1982, ISBN 0-517-54914-X) Africa (Taschen, 2002, ISBN 3-8228-1616-7) Riefenstahl Olympia (Taschen, 2002, ISBN 3-8228-1945-X) Author Kampf in Schnee und Eis (Leipzig, 1933) Hinter den Kulissen des Reichsparteitags-Films[54] (München, 1935) Schönheit im olympischen Kampf (Berlin, 1937) Die Nuba Eng: The Last of the Nuba (München, 1973) Die Nuba von Kau Eng: The People of Kau (München, 1976) Korallengärten Eng: Coral Gardens (München, 1978) Mein Afrika Eng: Vanishing Africa (München, 1982) Leni Riefenstahl’s Memoiren Eng: The Sieve of Time: The Memoirs of Leni Riefenstahl (München, 1987) Wunder unter Wasser Eng: Wonder under Water (München, 1990) In translation: Leni Riefenstahl: A Memoir by Leni Riefenstahl, autobiography (Picador Reprint edition, 1995, ISBN 0-312-11926-7) The People of Kau by Leni Riefenstahl, English edition 1976, republished by St. Martin’s Press in 1997, ISBN 0-312-16963-9 The Last of the Nuba by Leni Riefenstahl, English edition 1976, republished by St. Martin’s Press in 1995, ISBN 0-312-13642-0 Coral Gardens by Leni Riefenstahl (Harpercollins 1st U.S. edition, 1978, ISBN 0-06-013591-3) References and notes ^ a b TZ Online, Leni Riefenstahl: Letztes Geheimnis geleftet! retrieved 4 October 2007 ^ a b c Leni Riefenstahl (1993). The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (motion picture). Germany, Africa: Ray Müller. ^ Koster, Ron, Leni Riefenstahl’s Film Début, 2004, retrieved 6 January 2008 ^ New York Times, Janet Maslin, Just What Did Leni Riefenstahl’s Lens See?, 13 March 1994, retrieved 6 January 2008 ^ Psymon, Leni Gallery, retrieved 6 January 2008 ^ a b Carl Rollyson (2007-03-07). “Leni Riefenstahl on Trial”. The New York Sun. Retrieved 2008-11-02. ^ a b “Leni Riefenstahl: Hand-held history”. The Economist. September 2003. pp. XX. ^ Bulldog News, Hitler’s Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl Dead at 101 (after Associated Press), 9 September 2003, retrieved 5 January 2008 ^ bbc.com, Leni Riefenstahl the Devil’s Diva, 10 September 2003, retrieved 5 January 2008 ^ bbc.com, Film-maker Leni Riefenstahl dies, 9 September 2003, retrieved 4 January 2008. Text from article: “Her Nazi documentaries were hailed as groundbreaking film-making, pioneering techniques involving cranes, tracking rails, and many cameras working at the same time”. ^ a b c d Falcon, Richard (2003-09-09). “Leni Riefenstahl”. London: The Guardian. pp. XX. ^ Thurman, Judith (2007-03-17). “Where There’s a Will”. New Yorker. pp. XX. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Williams, Val (2003-09-10). “Leni Riefenstahl”. London: The Independent. pp. XX. ^ a b c d e f Moore, Charles (2003-09-10). “Leni Riefenstahl”. London: Daily Telegraph. pp. XX. ^ a b c d e f James, Clive (2007-03-25). “Reich Star”. The New York Times. pp. XX. ^ a b c d e Riding, Alan (2003-09-10). “Leni Riefenstahl, Film Innovator Tied to Hitler, Dies at 101”. The New York Times. pp. XX. ^ “Olympia in America, 1938: Leni Riefenstahl, Hollywood, and the Kristallnacht” by Cooper C. Graham (LOC), Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 13, No. 4,1993 ^ Riefenstahl in military uniform, image from: Steven Bach (2007). Leni – The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl. [1];Ścinki Taśmy, Polityka, 2003-10-05 ^ a b c d e f g h Harris, Paul (2007-04-29). “Hollywood tackles Hitler’s Leni”. London: The Guardian. pp. XX. ^ Die Neue Rechte, by Kay Sokolowsky, Konkret 3, 1999: “Mit unbeschreiblicher Freude, tief bewegt und erfüllt mit heissem Dank, erleben wir mit Ihnen mein Führer, Ihren und Deutschlands grössten Sieg, den Einzug Deutscher Truppen in Paris. Mehr als jede Vorstellungskraft menschlicher Fantasie vollbringen Sie Taten, die ohnegleichen in der Geschichte der Menschheit sind, wie sollen wir Ihnen nur danken? Glückwünsche auszusprechen, das ist viel zu wenig, um Ihnen die Gefühle auszusprechen, die mich bewegen”. ^ See Infield, Glenn B. Eva and Adolf New York:1974–Grosset and Dunlap (Interviews with former SS officers who had been close to Hitler and Eva Braun) ^ a b Mathews, Tom (2007-04-29). “Leni: The life and work of Leni Riefenstahl, by Steven Bach”. London: The Independent. pp. XX. ^ Jürgen Trimborn : Riefenstahl, Berlin 2002, page. 325 ^ Kein Vergessen, 70. Jahrestag der Errichtung des Zwangslagers für Sinti und Roma in Berlin – Marzahn. [2] The photo on page 13 shows Riefenstahl during the making of the film. See also: Leni Riefenstahl’s ‘Gypsy Question’, by Susan Tegel, in: journal Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Volume 23, Issue 1 March 2003, pages 3 – 10 ^ Sozialausgleichsabgabe für die Zigeuner bei dem Film Tiefland ab 27.4.42 ^ In a decree dated 16 December 1942, Himmler ordered the deportation of Gypsies and part-Gypsies to Auschwitz—Birkenau. See: Sinti and Roma, ed. Holocaust Museum [3] ^ Fourteen of them, with concentration camp numbers, were: Robert Adler (Z-5792); Karl Dewüs (Z-4145), Heini Ernst (Z-5696), Wilhelm Ritter (Z-4883), Albrecht Rose (Z-752), Charlotte Rosenberg (Z-5406), Werner Rosenberg (Z-4860), Otto Schmelzer (Z-5448); Karl Steinbach (Z-4875), Ludwig Weisenbach (Z-4857), Hermann Weiß (Z-644), Johann Weiß (Z-643), Willy Zander (Z-5933); Hans Zens (Z-178). Berliner Zeitung, 17.02.2001, Riefenstahls Liste. Zum gedenken an die ermordeten Komparsen, by Reimar Gilsenbach and Otto Rosenberg [4] ^ Leni Riefenstahl: A Life by Trimbonr, p. 206-8 ^ a b Taylor, Charles (2007-04-19). “Ill Will”. The Nation. pp. XX. ^ a b c d e f courses.washington.edu, Leni Riefenstahl – biography, retrieved 11 September 2008 ^ news.bbc.co.uk, Nazi propaganda photos withdrawn, 15 June 2005, retrieved 11 September 2008 ^ a b c d Baruma, Ian (2007-06-14). “Fascinating Narcissism”. New York Review of Books. pp. XX. ^ Callow, Simon (2003-05-12). “‘As pretty as a swastika'”. London: The Guardian. pp. XX. ^ a b Corliss, Richard (2002-08-22). “That Old Feeling: Leni’s Triumph”. TIME. pp. XX. ^ a b Leni Riefenstahl interviewed by Kevin Brownlow Taschen ^ Leni Riefenstahl (obituary) The Times. 10 September 2003 ^ Fascinating Fascism, 1975 ^ Harper’s Index. Volume 1 ^ Leni Riefenstahl (obituary) Daily Telegraph. 9 September 2003 ^ What they said about……Leni Riefenstahl The Guardian. September 11, 2003 ^ Bright Lights Film Journal, Lonesome Leni (film review), November 1999, retrieved 4 January 2008 ^ a b c Erickson, Hal. Rev. of Triumph of the Will, dir. Leni Riefenstahl. New York Times. Web ^ a b c d e Erickson, Hal. Rev. of Olympia, dir. Leni Riefenstahl. New York Times. Web. ^ a b c Thurman, Judith. “Where There’s A Will.” The New Yorker 19 March 2007. Print. ^ a b c d e f Corliss, Richard. “That Old Feeling: Leni’s Triumph.” Time 22 August 2002. Print. ^ Yoshida,Yukihiko, Leni Riefenstahl and German Expressionism: A Study of Visual Cultural Studies Using Transdisciplinary Semantic Space of Specialized Dictionaries ,Technoetic Arts: a journal of speculative research (Editor Roy Ascott),Volume 8, Issue3,intellect,2008 ^ International Emmy Awards. 1993. IMDB. Retrieved 2012-12-21. ^ Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (review) New York Times. 14 October 1993 ^ The Wonderful Horrible Life Of Leni Riefenstahl (review) Chicago Sun-Times. 24 June 1994 ^ a b c “Egg Fosters `Riefenstahl’.(Jodie Foster is scheduled to star in ‘The Leni Riefenstahl Project’)”. Variety. December 1999. pp. XX.[dead link] ^ a b Nugent, Benjamin (2002-09-02). “People”. TIME. ^ Steven Soderbergh Reveals He Dropped A Leni Riefenstahl Biopic To Do ‘Contagion’ Instead Indiewire. 11 March 2011 ^ Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Basterds’ is a glorious mash-up LA Times. 16 August 2009 ^ Hinter den Kulissen des Reichsparteitags-Films [5] complete online text and photos Further reading Leni Riefenstahl Bibliography (via UC Berkeley) Over 1700 references in English, German and French Loiperdinger, Martin/David Culbert: “Leni Riefenstahl, the SA and the Nazi Party Rally Films, Nuremberg 1933–1934: ‘Sieg des Glaubens’ and ‘Triumph des Willens’ “, in: Historical Journal of Film and Television, 8/1/1988, 3–38. Loiperdinger, Martin: “Sieg des Glaubens. Ein gelungenes Experiment nationalsozialistischer Filmpropaganda”, in: Zeitschrift für Pädagogik, 31/1993, 35–48. Fabe, Marilyn: Triumph of the Will. The Arrival of Hitler. Notes and Analysis. Mount Vernon/N.Y. 1975. Heinzelmann, Herbert: “Die Heilige Messe des Reichsparteitags. Zur Zeichensprache von Leni Riefenstahls ‘Triumph des Willens’ “, in: Bernd Organ/Wolfgang W. Weiß: Faszination und Gewalt. Zur politischen Ästhetik des Nationalsozialismus, Nürnberg 1992. Loiperdinger, Martin/David Culbert: “Leni Riefenstahl, the SA and the Nazi Party Rally Films, Nuremberg 1933–1934: ‘Sieg des Glaubens’ and ‘Triumph des Willens’ “, in: Historical Journal of Film and Television, 8/1/1988, 3–38. Schwartzman, R.J.: Racial Theory and Propaganda in ‘Triumph of the Will’ “, in: Florida State University on Literatur and Film, 18/1993, 136–153. Dassanowsky, Robert von: “Wherever you may run, he will find you: Leni Riefenstahl’s Self-Reflection and Romantic Transcendence of Nazism in Tiefland.” in Camera Obscura, 35 1996/97, 107-29. Dassanowsky, Robert von: “‘A Mountain of a Ship’: Locating the Bergfilm in James Cameron’s ‘Titanic’ “, in: Cinema Journal 40, No. 4, Summer 2001, 18-35. Leni Riefenstahl – A Memoir, St. Martin’s Press, 1993, ISBN 0-312-09843-X A Portrait of Leni Riefenstahl by Audrey Salkeld, 1996, ISBN 0-7126-7338-5 The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, documentary film directed by Ray Müller (1994) Leni Riefenstahl: The fallen film goddess by Glenn B. Infield (Crowell, 1976, ISBN 0-690-01167-9) Leni Riefenstahl: The Seduction of Genius by Rainer Rother, translated by Martin H. Bott (Continuum International Publishing Group reprint edition, 2003, ISBN 0-8264-7023-8) The Films of Leni Riefenstahl by David B. Hinton, Scarecrow Press 3rd edition, 2000, ISBN 1-57886-009-1 Leni Riefenstahl: Five Lives by Angelika Taschen, 2000, ISBN 3-8228-6216-9 Leni Riefenstahl: A Life by Jurgen Trimborn, Translation by Edna McCown, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007, ISBN 0-374-18493-3 Yoshida,Yukihiko, Leni Riefenstahl and German Expressionism: A Study of Visual Cultural Studies Using Transdisciplinary Semantic Space of Specialized Dictionaries ,Technoetic Arts: a journal of speculative research (Editor Roy Ascott),Volume 8, Issue3,intellect,2008 Bach, Steven (2007). Leni – The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl. Knopf., ISBN 0-375-40400-7 See also Walter Frentz Manfred George External links Official website Leni Riefenstahl at Find a Grave Leni Riefenstahl at the Internet Movie Database The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, 3-hour video on YouTube, with English subtitles and English narration. Das Blaue Licht: The Art of Leni Riefenstahl Unofficial biographical website endorsed by the Riefenstahl Estate Stills of Walter Riml, photographer of the film Das blaue Licht Women’s History collection “Fascinating Fascism”, a critical 1975 essay by Susan Sontag (out of Under the Sign of Saturn) List of documentaries about and or with Leni Riefenstahl (1965–2004) Leni Riefenstahl: Film Maker Extraordinaire or Nazi Stooge? National Centre for History Education – Australia Robert Dassanowsky’s Tiefland article Das blaue Licht essay Deneulin Tiefland essay Leni Riefenstahl and her work, a bibliography Photographs of Leni Riefenstahl Olimpia and the photography of Willy Zielke. By Ralph Ueltzhoeffer (Wikipedia Text).